


The Two Princes of Asgard

by Copper_Wires



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Berserker Thor (Marvel), Gay Tavern (Not a gay bar but close), M/M, Mythology References, Odin's A+ Parenting, POV Outsider, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 19:44:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18505783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Copper_Wires/pseuds/Copper_Wires
Summary: In a tavern on distant Vanaheim, men gather during the winter for companionship--and to swap stories of the nine realms. On this night, one Aesir decides to finally tell the truth about his realm's king, or kings: one, a berserker warrior turned mad by bloodlust, the other his loyal, scheming brother who is the only one who can calm the beast.





	The Two Princes of Asgard

**Author's Note:**

> Hello all! I desperately wanted to write something, and I've been in a serious state of writer's block when it comes to editing Weapons of Warmth, so I thought I'd dust myself off and post this outsider POV Thorki tale, written in one sitting for the pals in my discord for our Berserker!Thor day. It was a blast to write! I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. <3

The tavern was located far back in the forests of Vanaheim, far above the furthest village and the most remote farms. It was called a tavern, or the tavern by those who knew it, but in reality it was more of an inn or a boarding-house, for reasons that were entirely practical in nature: anyone who took the time to cross through the forests and find the tavern would have to know what they were looking for, and further, they would have to want to be there very badly, and would be obliged to stay for some time. If you were there when the first snows came, you would be there until they receded.

 

The tavern-owner was a Vanir named Stigr, and he had been there for an age. His face was as broad and as pale as an old drum, but not nearly as smooth, and he moved with the air of a man who had grown up with much less weight and care on his frame. Stigr, it should be said, understood why a hunter or farmer might cross a forest for miles and spend his year’s earnings on a stay at the tavern. Stigr did not exclude anyone from his establishment, but it was men who came to the tavern: men without wives or families, or for whom wives and families were a means to an end, a free pass to receive the freedom of movement they required in other areas. Stigr did not worry about the tavern attracting notice. What, he thought, would anyone do about it? Whoever needed to be at the tavern would find their way there. He saw all sorts—old men followed by much younger men; men who seemed tall enough to be half-giants, men with high voices and kind eyes who seemed too delicate to live out in the real world. There were fights, sometimes, and Stigr broke them up. Sometimes the same men would come season after season and grow closer each winter. Sometimes they would not return, after that. Stigr liked to believe they had found somewhere better to be together, on their own, without the smoke and the smell of ale and old meat and of dozens of men living together under one roof.

 

Still, for those who needed to be there, the tavern was a sanctuary—a far-flung haven where the world and its troubles temporarily ceased to exist. If there was a god assigned to the passions that drove men there, Stigr thought, then he was a benevolent one.

* * *

 

It was winter, deep winter, and the few hours of daylight had come and gone already. The men who had not taken up other activities for the evening were gathered around the fire. There was a new one here to stay this season, a slim Aesir by the name of Halvor. He had a high color to his face and blonde hair that cascaded down his shoulders in loose plaits, and gestured with his hands excitedly whenever he spoke, which was frequently and with passion. The man he had come with had departed before the snow, but Halvor, to the quiet shock and delight of all, had remained. At first he had been heartbroken and shy, and shuffled from group to group each evening, listening wide-eyed to the stories that the hunters and warriors shared, being plied with food and drink. He had what some might call a romantic disposition, and as such was a fantastic audience for stories; he gasped at all the right moments, laughed at others, and if the tale veered too far into the obscene, a pink blush would work its way up his neck and cross in pleasing little patches across his cheeks. Eventually, however, Halvor stopped sulking and listening quietly, and whatever acclaim he had won as an audience member, he had earned twice over as a storyteller. His Aesir blood had been a point of contention for many, slight and small as he was, but the myths he had brought from his homeworld were so fantastic that it seemed, at least for now, that questioning further would spoil the entertainment. Besides, it had been quietly agreed upon that he was much too pretty to risk sending him back into sullen reclusion. Tonight it was much the same; a very handsome if slightly greying farmer who he was growing quite fond of had quietly handed him several tankards of ale and was pressed close to his side, watching him with dark, beady eyes through the smoke of the fire. The small crowd who were all nursing drinks and sat around him seemed transfixed by the story Halvor had just started telling. Anyone walking in—which would have been quite an accomplishment indeed, since the snow was piled six feet around the tavern’s walls—would have heard this:

 

“So you see, brothers, that I have been holding off the best story for tonight.”

 

A few chuckles at this. Halvor said this nearly every evening, about nearly every story he told.

 

“I mean it! You don’t want me to tell you about Asgard’s king?”

 

Some interest, now. One man set down his ale. It was true that Halvor, despite his insistence that no one knew Asgard better than he, had stuck mostly to the old stories, embellishing them with his particular twists and turns, but delivering very little in the way of actual news or any events that could be described as current.

 

Halvor sat up straighter, demurely refusing the offer of another drink from his latest companion. “Asgard, as you may know, was once ruled by Odin All-Father, who conquered the nine realms with the help of Asgard’s formidable army. This was before my own time. The ruler I knew was much more benevolent, an old man, and he had two sons.”

 

There were murmurs of dissent at this. “Odin?” yelped a warrior far back at the bar who seemed to have lost half of his clothing in some wager that evening. “Odin had only the one son.”

 

“Not so!” said Halvor, his eyes flashing. “For this is why you must ask a real Aesir. The truth, it must be said, is a source of shame in our realm. I am, perhaps, committing treason just by telling you all.” Halvor did not wait for anyone to beg him to tell them anyways.

 

“I believe I’ve told you all about what Odin sacrificed in order to have the knowledge he has. It is said that he looked into the heart of the world and saw himself with one son, one shining, powerful, perfect successor to his empire. So when his first son was brought to him, Odin was overjoyed; he could see that his son was strong and healthy. He grew up to be handsome, as well, and I mean handsome—golden hair and broad shoulders. He could grow a full beard before he was twenty years old. He was Thor—or is, I should say—Thor, the thunderer, the first heir of Asgard. But Odin had a second son, you see. One he didn’t intend to have, one he had with another mistress, with the giant Laufey. This was Loki, the second heir, the one who didn’t fit into Odin’s vision for the future at all. He grew up to be dark-haired and slight, as far from the appearance of a giant as one could possibly be. I will say, to his credit, that people tend to paint him as a bit uglier than he really is; he’s handsome enough if you like that sort of thing. Anyways, the two of them were young men around the same time I was a boy, and I remember seeing them at feasts—Thor was something, I’ll tell you. Mm. He had arms that were as wide as my waist is around.”

 

“Not such a difficult feat,” laughed the man at Halvor’s side, throwing an arm around his waist and squeezing. Halvor giggled and squirmed away, hushing him but not moving completely out of his grasp. He brushed aside the strands of hair that had fallen away from their braids in the tussle, and continued speaking, clearly quite pleased at the looks of envy that everyone else was shooting in his companion’s direction.

 

“Anyways. Thor and Loki were raised as brothers, for quite some time, and it was kept quiet in the realms—I realize now why, for I believe even before Odin realized the problems his sons had, he planned on choosing one and hiding the other away. Of course it was clear that it would be Thor. Thor was the golden child, you know; every family has one, and in the royal family it was even more pronounced. But Loki was good at some things, and perhaps to keep Thor on his toes, they were given the same education, the same shot at the throne, even, if you were to believe such things.

 

One day when I was about ten years old I snuck off into the palace grounds with my friends to steal from the gardens. My family were all leather-workers, you see, and my uncle worked in the stables for the king. It was all very relaxed in those days; there was no great separation between the royal family and anyone else on Asgard. There are still so few of us!

 

Anyways. I’m only saying all this because what I saw in the gardens that day makes such terrible sense, in retrospect. I had climbed all the way up a tree to pick these gorgeous, golden-green pears that were growing that season; there were so many to a tree that the boughs were sloping and the ground was covered in the fruit. I had just managed to climb up to the topmost branches where the best, sunniest fruit was when I heard shouting and nearly fell off my branch. You see, the gardens are walled in with a brick wall about five feet high—more for the rabbits than anything else—and on the other side of the wall are fields where warriors will spar and practice. On this day, the two princes and their friends had decided to have a wrestling match. Now, I was fascinated by Thor, it was true, but I was also interested in Loki, for he was much less public than his brother and seeing him was rare in those days. I remember squinting through the leaves like a little squirrel to catch a glimpse. Thor had his shirt off—he was a young man then, about twenty-five—and he was wrestling this massive man, a friend of his, with a great red beard. Can’t recall his name, but his stomach looked wide enough to sail a ship across it. Anyways, he had Thor pinned down on the ground, and the dust was kicked up all around them, and I, being...well, being ten years old and not quite sure why this fascinated me, I kept looking on from the tree, you know, just to see who would come out the victor. But the strangest thing happened, then. I realized that the shouting had been coming from Loki, who was dancing around at the edge of their little wrestling-field and looking like he was about to pass out from nerves. You think I’m slim, Brynjar? You should’ve seen Loki at twenty-five. He was as slight as a willow bough, and waving about like one as well. He was yelling to the man to get off Thor. “Let him win!” he’d shout, and then try to shoot some sort of burst of magic at him. But the man didn’t let up.”

 

Halvor paused at this and took a deep draught of ale, offered by the ever-attentive Brynjar.

 

“Anyways. The next thing I know—and you must all believe this story is true, because bits of it are going to be quite unsatisfying, I’m afraid—the next thing I know, something... _happens_ , to the man who’s wrestling Thor. It was as though the rules of how the world works just stopped applying to Thor completely. He punched him, and it was...it was horrible. The punch ripped _through_ his shoulder, and the scream he gave was like nothing I’ve ever heard. I mean, have you ever seen someone rend through flesh with a punch? There are things you see when you see a body destroyed, things that are meant not to be seen—all the insides of how things might connect to each other, and then just the redness of it, all broken and smashed. I didn’t dare to move but I’ll admit I closed my eyes and held to the bough with all my strength. The only other thing I remember before the guards were called and I found a chance to scramble back down my tree was seeing Loki rush over, not to the man who had fallen, but to Thor. He threw his arms around his brother’s neck; at the time I thought it was to hold him back, or to punish him, but now...”

 

Halvor trailed off dramatically, and suddenly his face split into a grin. “Now I realize that it was lust that drove the princes into each other’s arms.”

 

This got a reaction from the crowd, indeed. They had not realized this would be that type of tale.

 

“I don’t know when they started fucking each other, really. I’m sure it was around the time that Loki stopped looking like such a little weasel and started looking sort of wicked and pretty. Thor could’ve had his pick of women, of course, but it became clear eventually that the prince had other things on his mind. Some said he was single-minded in his path to the throne, spending time studying old war-plans and histories. Those who have some hindsight about the matter can only conclude that he was occupied solely with letting his baby brother choke on his royal cock. I used to hear stories about it—that the cooks in the palace would find bottles of wine missing, and that the empty bottles would be in Thor’s chambers the next day, and that Loki would walk around like a sore cat in heat, all bleary-eyed and nervous. I feel for him, honestly. If I’d been Thor’s half-brother I don’t know that it would have stopped me from spreading my legs, not if half the stories about how well-endowed the thunderer is are true.”

 

The energy in the room had changed, now. At least one couple who had been firmly preoccupied when the story began had crossed over to sit, arms twined around each other, near the fire. Other, more solitary souls were bristling with fascination behind their beards.

 

“I’m sure, though none of us are terribly political people, that you might wonder why I speak so freely of our princes. There is a reason; one reason is because I speak of them the way one speaks of those from the far past, as if they are myth, no longer here to listen to what I say. This is both true and not true. Both of them still live, but I can recognize little of them in what I tell you now.

 

In any case, these rumors about the princes, when they were fresh gossip, were kept between a few people; between men who were willing enough to hear it and the palace staff who were wise enough to only tell their tales to the right audience. But there was another reason that this talk never went far: it was because other, more serious rumors were beginning to spread about Thor. Several years after that incident at the training-ground, when I was a teenager and truly starting to take stock of the world around me, I became aware of a brewing unrest around the topic of Svartalfheim. The dwarves had always given us trouble, and it became clear that war was on everyone’s minds. Yet the All-Father, for all his wisdom and experience in battle, and for all he seemed to adore his oldest son, refused to even entertain the notion of sending Thor out onto the front lines. This, it should be said, was extremely strange on Asgard; not just that the prince would be refused his place at the head of his warriors, but that the prince was so old now, a grown man, and was as yet untested in the ways of war. He had been given the hammer Mjolnir during his official coronation as Odin’s heir, and yet he had not, so far as anyone knew, ever spilled so much as a drop of blood with it.

 

None of this ever marred his reputation, of course. Thor was well-liked throughout Asgard; it was Odin’s judgement that people began to question. Surely, they thought, here was an old man doting on his golden child, protecting him when he could clearly already protect himself.

 

I think, really, that was what did it—the whispers that the king was past his prime. When the dissent on Svartalfheim seemed to be reaching its peak, Odin finally announced that it would be Thor who would launch the first charge. I was just old enough, at the time, to join them. I was a decent warrior—no, really I was! There’s muscle under this tunic, as some of you might be lucky enough to learn one day.” Havlor shook his head and tried to flex his free arm as if to prove the point to his onlookers. Eventually their laughter died down, and he continued.

 

“It was a great honor to join, in any case. It seemed like a simple enough task—push the dwarves back from a trading town that they had recently overtaken which was clearly meant to be run by Asgard, and re-establish our northern borders there. They had built up a small militia for this very purpose, and I think most of us had expected that it would be mostly for a show of force.”

 

Halvor’s face seemed to darken for a moment, and he did not push away when Brynjar moved to put an arm around him this time.

 

“I’m not, to this day, quite sure what happened next.  We set down on a hill just above the settlement, and I remember Thor being there, hammer in hand, and Loki was there as well, serving as some kind of tactical advisor, I had assumed. We weren’t going to charge them, and instead planned on marching, slowly, towards their outpost, to give them a nice, long view of us, give them the option to surrender early, you know. _Well_. It appeared that they had been forewarned of our coming, somehow. And I don’t know if it was dwarven biases towards creatures who look like they live underground, or simply spotty reconnaissance work, but they had identified Loki as the sole prince of Asgard, and before we had so much as dusted ourselves off from our trip across the bifrost, there were a score of mercenaries charging straight for him.

 

And then, quite as suddenly, there wasn’t.

 

Or rather, there were still certainly _bits_ of them, but they weren’t in any form one might identify as “dwarves” from any epistemological or biological standpoint. It was really more of a deconstruction on the concept of a dwarf.”

 

Blank faces from around the room. Halvor rolled his eyes in exasperation. This was clearly not the crowd for subtle humor.

 

“What I’m trying to say is that the thunderer rent that entire first wave of the dwarven militia limb from limb, in a single series of strokes, with his bare hands, and he did not stop there. He did not stop until their flesh was strewn across the earth in scraps. The first attack happened so quickly that none of us could have known what was going on, but as I as I said, he did not _stop._ He did not stop _at all._ He tore, and he hammered, and he charged, and he split the sky in half because someone had dared to touch his precious brother. Make no mistake—this was why. At the end of everything you could see him from a mile off because the clouds were gathered over his head. He was ... _kneeling_ there, with the ruined flesh all spread around him like a horrible quilt— or perhaps _crouching_ would have best described it, and Loki was there with him. Loki had stayed there the entire time, because Thor would not leave his side, and he could not so much as step a few paces back without another assailant heading for him. He was a warrior, too, Loki was, but it was clear from then on what role he preferred to take. I saw them over the crest of the hill, while the dust and screams cleared.

 

I’m not sure what they were doing,” Halvor said, much more primly than he had phrased anything he’d said in the tavern so far. “But you might imagine it.”

 

This drew a few knowing chuckles from the crowd, and Halvor smiled, giving Brynjar and some of his friends a nervous smile, as if asking for permission to continue. This was met with encouraging nods of interest, and with another swig of ale, he proceeded, voice a little lighter.

 

“It was a wretched scene, I’ll say, but thankfully it’s the last one I was directly involved in. After that things changed on Asgard, though. The stories flew like never before. We were usually a peaceful, trusting type of society, you know, but now everyone had their eyes open, because it became clear that Odin was in no position to control his children. There has always been a legend on Asgard of a cursed race, or of a race of Aesir with cursed blood who took to battle with a lust and hunger that could be satisfied—an all consuming desire to end life. It had always seemed a bit dramatic to me, the sort of thing that is only assumed to be true because it is too fantastic to ever be proven _untrue._ But it became clear the longer that Thor remained shut up in the palace, and the longer Odin deliberated about how to proceed with his succession, that this is what the king had been hiding all along. His prophecy had been right, in a way, you see. He had been granted two halves of one perfect heir—one with a warrior’s body and a mind that slipped into fever at the sight of blood, and a clever one who was a slim giant’s bastard. But there was another aspect to this, and I believe this second part of the prophecy never quite made it home to the old All-Father. If I were in his place, I don’t know if I could have digested it, either. I think that was his downfall, honestly. He began planning for Loki to succeed him the moment it became apparent that Thor was beyond help, but he had not planned on Loki being much cleverer than him, and he had not planned on Thor being helplessly, madly, passionately in love with his younger brother.

 

They were inseparable, you see, after Svartalfheim. The _sounds_ that they used to report from the palace..it seemed that Thor would become insatiable after taking a life, and he had just taken many, many lives. Whatever illusion of propriety they had must have crumbled; I can’t imagine you can disguise the fact that your brother is mounting you twice or three times a day, even with all the magic in the world. I heard once,” Halvor said, face going that admirable shade of pink, “that a servant caught them at it the first week, and they didn’t even _try_ to close the door. Thor was full-grown by then, all hair and muscle, nearly seven feet tall, with thighs that could break boulders. He had Loki down on the floor, not even on the _rug,_ just on the cobblestones of his chambers, and he had a hand on each of his brother’s legs, holding them down and open so he could drive his cock into him from above with his full weight behind him. And Loki’s back was arched up to meet it, the wicked creature, and he lay there with his head back and a grin on his face and just _took_ it, every inch of the thunderer’s massive cock—ten inches, some said, and thick as anything. And Loki _loved_ it. He wanted it more than he wanted the crown, that seemed clear enough; he made himself available to Thor’s every appetite like a professional wench, and would always receive him with moans and whimpers of delight, until his brother would spill in him with a roar and they would collapse on the floor together like animals. The whole place stank of sex, I heard; they were at it so much that changing the linens was even a risky operation.”  
  
Halvor felt Brynjar’s broad hand on his thigh and smiled, glancing at him and raising his chin slightly as if to indicate he was above it all, but not rejecting the motion in the slightest. The trousers he wore were not the tightest garment he owned, but if he was half-hard in his pants, it might be clear to anyone who was looking, and _everyone_ was looking. Indeed, his audience seemed to draw a collective breath as he let himself be teased for a moment by his companion without a shame in the world, only adjusting slightly and letting the heat edge into his voice as he continued.

 

“I believe that was what finally killed Odin, you know. I suppose it would kill anyone, to see their sons carrying on like that. You see now that trick of that vision that Odin had missed wasn’t just that he had borne two, half-formed sons, but that, indeed, they _were_ one— in each other, joined, if you will, physically and in all the other ways two people can be joined together. Odin had wanted to see the truth, and he had gotten the truth.

 

It must have seemed almost too good to be true for Loki when Odin went. I suppose I shouldn’t say he died, but he certainly passed away into a sleep that no one now believes he will wake from, leaving the second-choice heir he had hastily worked to establish in a sort of permanent stewardship over the realm. It’s been like that for most of my life, and is kept as quiet as we can keep it on Asgard. I believe there might have been some outcry were it not for the fact that Loki is the only one who can control the beast that his brother has become. It brings the less developed people of my realm a great sense of shame that our ruler need only spread his legs in order to keep a tether on the most powerful weapon in all the nine, but I say let them wring their hands over it! You should see them now. After Odin’s sleep was concluded to be a permanent state of being, Loki went after Jotunehim, with some sort of vendetta against the giants with whom he shared blood. Thor came in and split the entire throne room in half with a bolt of lightning, and then promptly lay his commanding sibling down in the wreckage and pumped him full of enough seed to produce several incestuous half-breed babies, had Loki been in the childbearing mood. I sometimes wonder if someday he will be,” Halvor said, eyes flashing now; the men in the room seemed to be completely enspelled by his words. “I imagine the scent of his lover’s pregnant body alone would keep Thor in a state of madness that might threaten the safety of every realm, including our own.”

 

“Oh, take this one upstairs and hush him up, won’t you, Brynjar!” yowled a man from the back, whose beard was white with foam from his tankard of ale. “S’not fair to the rest of us who are just tryin’ to have a quiet evening.”

 

Brynjar straightened up enough to hurl his empty glass at the offending patron. “He’ll do what he wants, as will I.”  He turned to Halvor, who was smiling quite prettily now; the leg Brynjar had been resting a hand on was turned invitingly towards him.

 

“Would you like for me to shut you up, love?” Brynjar asked him, polite as anything.

 

Halvor looked around the tavern, which had now grown quite familiar to him; it seemed his audience had now mostly either been lost in the length of his story or were working out their passions about its content on other patrons. He sighed a bit more heavily than he had intended to. By any storyteller's measure tonight had been a victory of the highest order, yet he could not shake an uncomfortable and unexpected feeling that he was a long way from home. Smoke was curling its way up to the ceiling and hanging there, flames dancing off the greasy clouds, and Havlor let the stirred-up memories of that day on Svartalfheim wash over him, vivid and raw, the arid plains red with blood. Despite the roaring fire, he shivered, and felt very glad for the steady warmth of Brynjar’s hand on his leg.

 

“Yes,” he said, finally, turning and kissing the farmer’s kind, careworn forehead. “I think I’d like that.”

 

 


End file.
